Pages

Friday, December 7, 2012

Too fast moving for me

In one sense not much happens in our NZ church. So the last 36 hours have been a belter for interesting developments. Our pakeha Archbishop David Moxon is moving to Rome, but as an Anglican not to become a Roman. This morning I awake to news that the Bishop of Waiapu, +David Rice (an American by birth and upbringing) is a candidate for an episcopal election in TEC (H/T Ron Smith). For Waiapu that will be interesting news to digest as the "NZ way" is generally for no one to know anything about a change of position until the change is announced.

One or two have asked if I am going to speculate here about who our new archbishop will be as I did with the ABC position. The answer is No. NZ is just too small, and there are too few candidates for the role (i.e. it will be one of eight bishops ... actually, one of seven bishops) for public discussion to be undertaken about respective merits etc. [NB I will not publish speculative comments here, just delete them; start your own blog etc if you wish to speculate].

But I do wonder if +David Rice has pretty much ruled himself out of consideration when he makes this statement in his election papers, "Tracy and I are convinced it is the right time for us to return
home after living in N.Z. for eighteen years."

Hence it seems likely that our effective candidates are the respective bishops of Dunedin, Christchurch, Nelson, Wellington, Waikato and Taranaki (which has one bishop in place after ++David leaves), and Auckland (x2).

I do hope that +David can work out his episcopacy well in Waiapu if he is unsuccessful after having publicly entered the very different-to-our-own process towards the possibility of becoming a bishop in TEC - in our process everything is secret re public news and public re circulating whispers!

Peter, I wonder if it is worth us reflecting on how the process of electing a bishop in TEC is different to ACANZP.

I like the transparency that the TEC model offers. In ACANZP it seems we keep everything (poorly) under wraps to protect the reputation of unsuccessful candidates, but our Province is such a small place the rumour mill cranks up and many of us hear about the 'confidential' goings on anyway, and probably with a fair amount in inaccuracy thrown in!

Are there other reasons for the secrecy in ACANZP?

What are the benefits of the openly publicised candidates like TEC, that could help us in ACANZP?

Zane,There are benefits both ways.In our system a candidate can carry on with her or his present job, only a few people knowing that the candidacy was not a success. Secrecy also enables people to concentrate on praying for the election rather than discussing the merits of the candidates in other forums (including blogs!).

Any possibility that someone outside the province could be selected? After all, the C of E was willing to look outside England when they selected Rowan Williams. Speaking of which, he's not that old, he has lots of experience, and from what you and Fr. Ron have said, he was very well received when he was in NZ last month. You all could do worse.

Hi Paul,Avoiding discussion of the speculative aspect of your comment, I can nevertheless clarify a fact of the case: our archbishops are the "senior bishops" of their respective tikanga where "senior" is by election and not by year of ordination. The archbishops continue in their respective episcopal units as diocesans or assistants. Thus the question of an outsider being brought in does not arise in ACANZP.

Your penultimate sentence raises an interesting question. Without wishing to speculate about whether it may or may not happen this time around, has there been an instance of an assistant bishop being selected as primate and remaining assistant bishop in his diocese (I use the male pronoun because ACANZP hasn't had a female primate yet)?

Hi Paul,Not quite but almost.Under a previous structuring of our primacy we had a Presiding Bishop (happened to be Pakeha) and two Co-Presiding bishops (one for each of the remaing tikanga). That left a need for the pakeha dioceses to have a 'Convening Bishop' who was +George Connor, the Regional Bishop in Bay of Plenty, Assistant Bishop of Waiapu. As that Convening Bishop +George was our "Senior Bishop" for the pakeha dioceses.

A change or two further on and we have three not four senior bishop roles, they are called archbishops (all together being the primacy). Potentially and with a semi-precedent, an assistant could be chosen to be the next archbishop.

Flexible Recent Comment Widget for Blogger

Solidarity

Anglican Down Under

Welcome to this blog on Anglican, theological, biblical and other matters, mostly missional or liturgical (but I reserve the right to write about cricket). It is grounded in some islands at the bottom of the world which, together with a large island to our west, constitute fabulous Down Under.

Sometimes I pursue such a fine centrist line that I annoy people on either side of the line. If you do not like being annoyed then you know what to do.

I work for the Diocese of Christchurch and for Theology House, Christchurch. Views expressed here are not necessarily the views of either organisation. But I harbour the hope that what I say here is helpful to those with whom I am in fellowship because of these two entities!

ACANZP

ACANZP stands for Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. In Aotearoa New Zealand this church is also known as Te Haahi Mihinare - The Missionary Church. (I work in ministry training and theological education in this church as Director of Education and Director of Theology House in the Diocese of Christchurch. Views expressed here are personal and not those of the Diocese, but the intent is not to express any personal views contradictory of the Diocese's).

Icon

Followers

Pearls

Show us anything clearly set forth in Holy Scripture that we do not teach and we will teach it. Show us anything in our teaching or practice is clearly contrary to Holy Scripture, and we will abandon it.

Stephen Neill

For the glory of God is a human being fully alive, and the glory of humanity is the vision of God.

St Irenaeus

Fundamentally the Gospel is obsessed with the idea of the unity of human society.

Masure

We have returned to the Apostles and the old Catholic Fathers. We have planted no new religion, but only preserved the old that was undoubtedly founded and used by the Apostles of Christ and other holy Fathers of the Primitive Church.

Bishop Jewel

Preachers shall behave themselves modestly and soberly in every department of their life. But especially shall they see to it that they teach nothing in the way of a sermon, which they would have religiously held and believed by the people, save what is agreeable to the teaching of the Old or New Testament, and what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected from this selfsame doctrine.

Canon 6 from the 1571 Bishop’s Convocation

Kent: "See better, Lear, and let me still remain."

William Shakespeare

For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear. Wittgenstein

Justice is eternal, and doesn't depend at all on human conventions.

Montesquieu

The real challenge of Islam to Western intellectual discourse is for us to ask ourselves whether our unprecedented modern experiment of conducting political life with no transcendent values is really working out as well as we once hoped.

Harvey Cox

The long-term happiness of a society depends on how individuals behave towards each other, how families hold together, and how leaders keep the trust of people.

William Hague

Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.

John Neuhaus

To be an evangelical is not, first and foremost, about doctrinal correctness, but about a passion for the gospel of salvation from sin through Christ for eternity.

John Richardson

Neither may we ... lightly esteem what hath been allowed as fit in the judgement of antiquity, and by the long continued practice of the whole church; from which unnecessarily to swerve, experience hath never as yet found it safe.

Richard Hooker (Lawes, V.7.1)

The function of the Christian canon was to separate the apostolic witness from the ongoing tradition of the church, whose truth was continually in need of being tested by the apostolic faith.

Brevard S. Childs

Every word of God proves true. (Proverbs 30:5)

If the people of this religion are asked about the proof for the soundness of their religion, they flare up, get angry and spill the blood of whoever confronts them with this question. They forbid rational speculation, and strive to kill their adversaries. This is why truth became thoroughly silenced and concealed.

Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi

Change comes through ordinary working people organising themselves to struggle for a better world day in, day out.

Morning Star newspaper editorial Tuesday 5 May 2015

"In the soft grey silence he could hear the bump of the balls: and from here and from there through the quiet air the sound of the cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a fountain falling softly in the brimming bowl."

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Something to think about

Given that, like it or not, much Anglican Communion trouble at root is about dispute over what the church should teach about homosexuality, two papers here may be helpful. They represent, in my view, some of the best arguments for and against setting aside or obeying Scripture's teaching. If only the authors were Anglican ...

Moderation Policy

Ad hominem attacks, potentially libellous comments, and comments with the appearance of being generated by a machine are liable to be rejected. Try hard not to use these words and their cognates: bigot, hypocrite, homophobia. Figure it out!

My strong preference here is for NO anonymous commenters. Please supply at least a first name. Some non de plumes allowed here belong to people I know personally. Anonymous comments published here likely pass on content grounds. Anonymity combined with ad hominisms = strike out.

Subscribe To

About Me

Blog Top Sites

Pageviews last month

Visitor Locations

Glossary

For people for whom NZ English is not their native tongue here are some translations of regular Maori words used here or in linked articles: Aotearoa: name for New Zealand; aroha: love; Ariki: lord; Atua: God; hui: gathering, assembly, conference; hui amorangi: regional area under leadership of regional bishop within Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa (Diocese of Aotearoa); kai: food; kai moana: sea food; Ihu: Jesus; iwi: tribe; Karaiti: Christ; Kotahitanga/Te Kotahitanga: within ACANZP, the council responsible for drawing together the hopes and aspirations of the three tikanga for theological education and ministry training and transforming them into policy and into recommendations to the St John's College Trust Board for expenditure of educational funds; also the Board of Governors of St John's College (the primary, but not the only object of SJCTB expenditure); koha: gift, responsive gift to hospitality offered; mana: power, respect, honour; marae: community meeting area, including meeting hall and dining room; mihi: speech; moana: sea, ocean; pihopa: bishop; pihopatanga: bishopric, diocese; powhiri: welcome ceremony; rangimarie: peace; tangata: people; tangi: funeral; taonga: treasure; tikanga: culture, cultural stream, within ACANZP: one of the three strands, Maori [Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa], Pakeha [NZ Dioceses], or Pasefika (Diocese of Polynesia) which make up our whole church under the authority of General Synod while being self-governing for many aspects of church life in each of the tikanga; waiata: song; wairua: spirit; Wairua Tapu: Holy Spirit; waka: canoe; whanau: family, extended family.